Anyone with offshore bank accounts, overseas income and assets needs to get up to speed with the new rules on international tax compliance, which will see accountants and tax advisers liable to notify clients about automatic exchange of financial information and disclosure rules by 31 August, says Meg Wilson CTA

The European Commission has published its annual taxation trends report showing that tax revenues across the EU’s member states stabilised in 2015 at 38.7% of GDP with the EU having one of the highest tax levels compared to other advanced economies

Sham contracts in the construction industry are increasingly being used to avoid tax legislation. Ian Anfield, managing director of Hudson Contract, provides tips on how to spot sham contracts and explains the risks associated with them

All measures dropped from the Finance Act including loss relief and non dom changes in the run-up to the election will be reinstated in a Second Finance Bill which will be introduced as soon as possible after the summer recess when MPs return to parliament 

The government has caved into pressure over Making Tax Digital and has delayed rollout by 'at least' two years until 2020 with the deferral confirmed by the Treasury, although quarterly VAT reporting using the system will be mandatory from 2019, reports Sara White

When the Supreme Court rejected the Rangers employee benefit trust argument, HMRC appeared to have been vindicated. Ray McCann CTA, partner at Joseph Hage Aaronson examines the implications of the ruling, the implications for companies who used EBTs and did not settle with HMRC when an amnesty was offered, and the use of abusive tax avoidance schemes 

All trusts and estates with a tax liability must register online via the HMRC trusts and estates online service by 5 October following the withdrawal of paper form 41G (Trusts)

The OECD committee on fiscal affairs has released a draft of the planned 2017 update to the OECD model tax convention, and is seeking feedback solely on those elements which have not already been approved as part of its work on the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project

As Matthew Taylor delivers his workforce review, Mazars head of employment tax Vaneeta Khurana examines the current tax rules for different types of workers and employees, and how to determine an individual’s employment status for tax purposes

HMRC has confirmed that new rules on carried forward losses will not be reflected in the Corporation Tax online service and CT600 return form until the end of autumn 2017 as the measures were dropped from the truncated Finance Act 2017 enacted before the June general election

The OECD has released the 2017 edition of its transfer pricing guidelines, which have been updated to reflect the work carried out as part of its Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project to ensure that multinationals’ taxable profits are not artificially shifted out of some jurisdictions, and that their tax base reflects the economic activity undertaken in a particular country

In part three of our series on pensions and the lifetime allowance, Kay Ingram, director of public policy at LEBC, finds the complex nature of the annual allowance recovery charge makes it a stealth tax for some final salary scheme members